From the Desk of Louis Sykes

The collapse of the FTX exchange has been a significant catalyst for market participants to utilize one of Bitcoin's greatest value propositions -- self-custody.

Self-custody is when only you have possession of your digital funds because you control the private key. There's no question; there's no alternative to holding your crypto other than in private cold storage.

Owning your Bitcoin keys voids the necessity for a financial intermediary, completely removing any and all counterparty risk. This is especially important given that crypto exchanges hold a shaky history of being responsible stewards of clients' funds.

When you hold your crypto in hot wallets managed by intermediaries like exchanges, they have all the control. They can freeze your transactions, block withdrawals, set limits on the amount you can transact -- and, in the case of FTX, use your funds for their private self-interest.

We're seeing a massive migration where market participants are waking to the value of self-custody.

We pride ourselves on never being dogmatic and always being open to any scenario.

What often marks a great technical analyst is the ability to choose to be objective and not letting emotion get in the way of analyzing money flow.

And we all have that choice.

We can be driven by an immediate emotional response and gather into an angry mob over the injustices of the FTX situation.

Or we can take responsibility for our own self-interest and continue to look for opportunities as they come.

It's hard not to feel like an asshole as I write this. But your only objective here is to make money. If you're a trader, you're not here for some greater good.

Now, to be clear, I in no way celebrate these misfortunes. Financial markets are brutal, and there’s nothing worse than the guy getting off on people blowing up.

But it’d be a terrible shame to walk away from this institutional crypto contagion without taking some lessons.

We’re all human beings.

None of us is infallible.

Markets like these remind us of the importance of risk management, which is so easily forgotten in the good times.

There’s such...

Our process is defined by the power of simplicity.

We don't need a complicated macro thesis to position ourselves appropriately in crypto markets. We find our edge in stepping back and identifying inflection points where we want to define our risk.

Risk should be front and center, considering recent events.

One of the takeaways from this entire FTX/Alameda mess is the necessity of risk management. Sam Bankman-Fried lost an empire in the space of a week.

If this isn't a great reminder to manage risk and position size accordingly, I don't know what it is...

A hilarious video made the rounds on Twitter showing Caroline Ellison, the 28-year-old CEO of Alameda Research, arguing against the use of stop losses.

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She also said that technical analysis is voodoo in the same interview...

This is the video recording of our November 11, 2022, All Star Charts Crypto Weekly Strategy Session.

Guys, this is Technical Analysis 101.

You don't buy an asset that's just broken a level of support. If you do, you're only asking for trouble.

As technicians, we keep things simple, and we tell it like it is. We're not afraid to call something a piece of shit if that's what the data tells us.

I find a level of beauty in this process.

It doesn't matter how elegant your theory or big your I.Q. If the market is below a certain level, it's all wrong.

Wow.

What can I say?

This is the most chaotic turn of events I've experienced being involved with crypto. For those who somehow missed what's happening, here are the brief details...

One of the largest crypto exchanges on the planet, FTX, has experienced a significant liquidity crunch. As a result, Binance has entered into a non-binding agreement to acquire FTX, helping to cover the liquidity crunch.

Any and all funds held on FTX are now gone.

It's the biggest blow-up in the industry's history.

From the Desk of Louis Sykes @haumicharts

It's nearly impossible to switch off when you're invested in crypto.

I'm a little jealous of those solely involved with legacy markets; it must be nice to have an off-switch. In this part of the financial world, there's always something happening.

And my passion for the space often makes it difficult for me to let go.

But, last weekend, my hand -- indeed, my whole body -- was forced. A night in the ER and a few days bedridden with a gnarly viral infection overwhelmed my ardor for fake internet coins.

Happy to report I'm recovering. And here's me after I stumbled to my computer to catch up on the action:

It certainly helped get me in touch with all the confused people out there who aren't involved in this ecosystem. Much of crypto's comings and goings can often seem unworldly and completely foreign.

"This must be how normies feel..." I said to myself.

And now we can turn to the substance of this exchange war between Binance and FTX. It's so entertaining...

This is the one we all need to watch.

I don't think it has to be any more complicated.

The strategy here is very simple:

This is the video recording of our November 4, 2022, All Star Charts Crypto Weekly Strategy Session.

Risk assets sold off following the latest move by the Federal Open Market Committee to hike interest rates by 75 basis points.

As always, we prioritize how markets price in these events and, ultimately, how they react to the actual print.

That's because the market is a forward-looking discount mechanism; price action reveals a collective expectation of events before they take place.

Rather than focusing on the minutiae of the CPI and/or the workings of the FOMC, we prioritize money flow.

Dogecoin and other meme coins are seeing a boom off the back of Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter.

It isn't isolated to the Doge. A slew of meme coins have been born since Elon tweeted an image of a Shiba Inu dog wearing a Twitter t-shirt for Halloween.

It's hilarious that his tweets never fail to pump these things.

So, is a new meme coin season upon us?

As technicians, we pride ourselves on never being dogmatic in our approach. If new data that invalidates our initial thesis presents itself, we're always willing to flip our approach.

Yesterday, we wrote that Ethereum testing a significant support zone suggests this rally is mean-reverting in nature. In that same breath, though, we noted that it's wise to treat every chart on its own merits.

If you adopt an overly broad picture of markets, you'll often miss some of the most straightforward trading opportunities.

With all that said, a few names are shaping up nicely in this tape.